Pilots make notes. Pilots make notes on weather, charts, and maps to highlight points of interest or serve as memory reference points. Pilots carry flight-specific notes in hard copy and refer to them during the flight. Unfortunately, this could contribute to cockpit clutter and provide a head-down distraction when referencing the notes.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) provides numerous services to pilots including reports of condition and/or events which could enhance a pilot's situational awareness. Included in these services are the PIREP (pilot report), SIGMET (significant meteorological information) Convective SIGMET, AIRMET (airmen's meteorological information), and NOTAM (notice to airmen). Briefly, the PIREP is created by the FAA in response to a pilot's reporting of actual weather conditions. The SIGMET is created to provide meteorological information which may concern all aircraft. The Convective SIGMET is issued for an area of thunderstorms. The AIRMET is created to provide concise weather phenomena that could affect aircraft safety. The NOTAM is issued to alert pilots of potential hazards that could affect the safety of flight enroute or at a specific location.
Although these services provide important information—sometimes, vital information—to pilots, there may be times where these reports are neither timely nor capture other information useful to the pilot about a location or event that has been observed by the pilot but not reported.